Entries tagged with politics

Going back to work after a week off is always such a fun adventure as I try to sort out the mess that my cash office has become. I wish I had time to just focus on that and nothing else, but of course we're getting busier and busier as Christmas creeps ever closer, so things are still a bit of a mess.

I'm falling behind with the November meme again, so I'll jump straight into...

15. If you were a politician, what would your first agenda be?

Exploring the Palace of Westminster. I know that's not what this question means, but I watched a programme about The Houses of Parliament a few months ago and it was really interesting seeing how things worked and all the weird little traditions they have. I'd be particularly excited for my first Division vote, where all the MPs have eight minutes to get from wherever they are in and around the building to reach either the Aye lobby or the No lobby to register their vote on a bill.

I might give a proper answer to this question when I have more time, but for now I have to watch University Challenge!

Well, I have done my civic duty and marked a cross next to a person's name on a piece of paper. Go me. Actually I marked four crosses - one for the general election, one for the borough council election and two for the parish council election. I was actually allowed two votes for borough council too but it was hard enough finding one person I wanted to vote for so I left it at that.

And now we wait. The results will be coming in over night but I'm not going to stay up for it, even though it could be interesting. While the Conservatives may have a pretty much guaranteed win here, that's certainly not the case for the rest of the country. Apparently this is the closest election in decades and I have absolutely no idea which way it will go.

I have defeated Dark Sol! By which I mean I have completed Shining in the Darkness. Now what retro game am I going to spend my free time playing? There's always Sonic the Hedgehog, but that doesn't have the save feature that made Shining in the Darkness such a good game to play day after day.

Maybe I could use this time to work out who I'm going to vote for. The election is tomorrow and I'm still not certain. Not that it really matters, though, since I live in Jeremy Hunt's constituency and we're pretty much guaranteed to stay Tory.

Normally I'd vote Liberal Democrats, but our Lib Dem candidate has been kicked out of the party for falsifying documents so he's not an option. I'm really rather pissed off with him for it because the Lib Dems have always been the main opposition here. Historically they've come the closest to ousting the Conservatives (back in 2005 they came within 2% of winning) so by doing this he's pretty much ruined even the slight chance we had of not re-electing Hunt.

UKIP are trying to claim that they've got a chance of winning here, but there's no way in hell I'm voting for them. Labour know they've got no chance and don't even bother to campaign. The Greens don't seem to have much of a presence either. We also have a couple of little parties I've not really heard of before - National Health Action Party and Something New Party. I've been looking at their policies to see what they stand for to see if I want to vote for either of them but I'm still not sure.

Not that it really matters, as I said before, but I'm determined to use my right to vote and I don't want to vote for something I don't believe in even if they have no chance of actually getting in.

And all of this is just the general election. We have local elections too and I have even less of an idea about who I want to vote for there!

I want to say more but I am so tired. And I didn't even stay up very long last night. I gave into my need for sleep some time before 2am, but then sleep wouldn't come and I just laid awake in bed for hours worrying excessively about ridiculous (non-election) things and being punished by my uterus for my failure to provide it with a baby.

And here we are again, election day in the US. I am drinking a Manhattan cocktail to celebrate.

Four years ago I managed to stay up until 4am and see Obama declared the winner. I'm not sure how long I'll manage to stay up this year but I'll give it a shot. I don't actually need to be awake at work tomorrow, right? Although if Romney wins I might be too depressed to get out of bed anyway.

Seriously America, I do not understand how that man has even the remotest chance of becoming president. He's just so vile.

Apparently the universe is telling me that I need to have my eyes tested. I had two pieces of post today. One was a card from Boots saying I should book an eye test. The other was a letter from Vision Express saying I should book an eye test.

So maybe I should book an eye test. I probably would, if only the thought of going into the place and talking to the people didn't fill me with such dread. You win again, anxiety. *shakes fist*

In other news, I voted today. I said Yes to AV. Most people I've talked to or interacted with online say they're voting yes as well but everything I've seen seems to predict a No result. How disappointing.

Ok, it wasn't surprising that we stayed Conservative. I was expecting that, although there was a small optimistic part of me that was hopeful we might go Lib Dem. What I was not expecting was for our Conservative MP to triple his majority!

At least before I could say that although we were Conservative, the Lib Dems had a very real chance here. Now it's just another safe seat in Toryland and that makes me sad.

Also, a great big 'fuck you' to the 644 people who voted BNP. I want you to know that I hate you all and would very much like to slap each and every one of you round the face.

I can't concentrate, my NaNo story is going nowhere and my joy over Obama winning is dampened by the success of Prop 8 in California, so my entry for today is going to be the memes I did while staying up for hours watching the election:

So it's finally election day in the US. It's been so long coming that it started to feel like both men would just be campaigning forever and neither would ever actually be president.

I probably won't be able to stay up as late as I did last time watching the results, but I'm going to try and see what I can. I remember four years ago, I went to sleep to talk of President Kerry and woke to an almost certain Bush victory. That was depressing. Hopefully this time will be better.